


Even Stars Must Fade

by xisuthros



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Non-Canonical Character Death, Post-Season 7 AU, WHY DO I HATE MYSELF, writing this made me legit cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 10:44:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21135440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xisuthros/pseuds/xisuthros
Summary: This one hurts. A lot. Basically, Bellamy dies during a patrol and Clarke is left reeling. This is set post Season 7, where they exiled Russell Lightbourne and Octavia, Diyoza, and Hope were all rescued from the anomaly. This was written as a requested prompt on Tumblr and has caused me to lose several hours of sleep. Read at your own risk.





	Even Stars Must Fade

In the end, even stars must eventually die. 

Clarke had been organizing the newly elected leaders of Sanctum and instructing them on the responsibilities of their roles. Raven was revamping the radiation shield surrounding the sanctuary and manufacturing more mobile stations to eventually expand it as the population grew. Murphy and Emori were somewhere in the Prime’s compound making that same population grow, while Indra, Octavia, and Diyoza were instructing Sanctum’s Wonkru-infused guard in hand-to-hand combat to further their skills. Gabriel, Niylah, and Jackson attempted to establish a larger hospital amongst the buildings of the sanctuary, while Gaia had taken it upon herself to create a history of the settled moon for posterity. Madi and Hope (reluctantly) were finally taking part in normal activities like school, while Bellamy, Echo, Miller, Jordan, and a dozen of Sanctum’s residents combed the nearby woods for supplies and isolated Children of Gabriel cells.

After Wonkru’s slow integration with Sanctum’s citizens and the downfall of the Primes, Clarke was beginning to imagine for the first time that they might finally be ready for peace. Russell Lightbourne had been exiled by demand of the people, realizing that a slow and sure death was a fitting punishment for one who had been running from it for so long. Octavia’s disappearance into the temporal anomaly along with Diyoza and her daughter’s reappearance had been enough of a headache for Clarke, who was now dealing with rebuilding a once-functioning society. The elected leaders, though they meant well, were very new to their positions and needed careful guidance. If left to their own devices, Clarke was almost certain Sanctum would starve or be embroiled in another war by the year’s end. 

With an involuntary huff of frustration, she plopped down on the chair that headed the large table and rubbed her temples slowly. One of them, a native to Sanctum, droned on about the seasons on the moon and the traditions that came with the first harvest of the year, most of which had been centered on the Primes. In her mind, Clarke’s thoughts drifted outward beyond the meeting hall towards the woods, where Bellamy was undoubtedly trekking with the scouting party. A small smile flitted across her lips as she imagined him enduring Jordan’s growing love of corny jokes, which he had learned from book discovered in Sanctum. In her mind, she could almost picture both Bellamy and Miller rolling their eyes at the end of each punchline. 

In the intervening months since the collapse of the temporal anomaly, Bellamy and Echo had slowly drifted apart. There was no big fight, no public declaration, but it soon became apparent to everyone that they had decided to call it quits. Both Echo and Bellamy separately told Clarke that they had just realized they were too different, their outlooks on the world too disparate. Despite their split, both remained friends and continued to build the sanctuary alongside Clarke and the others. Despite herself and the friendship she shared with both Bellamy and Echo, Clarke had felt a surge of hope when she pieced it together. Inwardly, she chastised herself over these feelings, that a relationship that appeared to make Bellamy happy had failed, but she could not help it. Sometime over the past several years, she had fallen in love with Bellamy Blake.   
While she could not point to a single moment that caused it, Clarke remembered vividly how she came to the realization. It was over a year into her isolation with Madi on Earth, when they had just gotten done with a fishing excursion. Like a ritual, Clarke had retreated to the rover and was beginning to set up the equipment to initiate her daily radio call towards the Ring. Madi had followed her to the rover and began watching her with a curious expression. 

“Clarke,” She asked in Trig. “Why do you still do that?”

“Do what?” Came the muffled reply as she leaned forward to grab a particularly uncooperative cable. 

Madi eyed her efforts with slight exasperation. “Call him. You said it’ll be a few more years before the ground is livable for everyone, and he hasn’t responded to any of your calls so far.”

Clarke paused before answering. Though she had assured Madi otherwise, there remained a possibility that Bellamy and the others had not been able to make it to the Ring. Or worse, that they did exist up there and were never able to come back down. The thought of never seeing Bellamy again haunted her nightmares. Oh, no. “I have to hope that h-they can hear me.” She responded finally, earning an raised eyebrow from the small girl. “It’s important to have hope. Besides,” She added teasingly. “If I don’t give them directions, they’ll completely miss us and I’ll be stuck alone with you forever.” Madi rolled her eyes and began walking back towards the camp.

“Whatever,” She called over her shoulder. “Say hi to Bellamy for me.”

Clarke’s heart lurched, the realization hitting her like a ton of bricks. It wasn’t the group she was desperately trying to reach, not entirely. Though she missed them terribly, it was Bellamy that she tried to contact each day. The thought of hearing his voice on the other end had been the only thing that staved off the nightmares, the image of him suddenly appearing enough to quell the despair she had gathered in her heart. Reaching back in her memories, it had always been Bellamy that she reached for when the situation turned sour, whenever they needed to face some great threat, it was always his hand that she grasped tightly like a lifeline. Through all the trials and heartaches, he had remained a constant in her life since their arrival on the ground. Now that he was gone, Clarke was desperately trying to keep him alive in whatever was she could. 

She loved him. Damn it, she thought. Love was a weakness. In the distance, Madi was cursing in Trig as the fish she was holding slipped from her grasp and landed on the ground. A small smile spread across Clarke’s face as she beheld the tiny warrior, who was angrily dusting off the fish with a rag. Warmth filled her heart and with it, the knowledge that she would fight to the death to defend Madi from whatever danger the future might hold. The strength her feelings caused Clarke to think again of Bellamy and the love she now realized coursed through her veins. Perhaps love was not weakness after all, she thought distantly. 

Clarke’s memories shifted to the months following the fall of the Primes. With Bellamy and Echo no longer together, the former had begun spending most of his free time around Clarke. It wasn’t until Madi and Octavia separately pointed it out that she realized that he may feel the same way about her that she did for him. That revelation, Clarke remembered, had nearly knocked her off her feet. After all the things she had done, after everything that had happened to both of them, she still found it hard to accept when good things happened. The thought of Bellamy actually loving her back was reminiscent of the daydreams she used to have during her time with Madi. 

Despite her knowledge of his supposed feelings and their near constant proximity, the two of them had been dancing around each other for the past several weeks. It was that sweet, sweet tension before one of them decided to take the final leap and openly state their feelings. Though they had already waited so long, Clarke could not deny the appeal of the buildup. Her thoughts constantly strayed towards him, her heart pounded furiously inside her chest whenever he was in the room, and he filled her every dream. She nearly kissed him yesterday when they had been sitting outside the compound watching the sunrise, seeing how the light caught his eyes and the way he seemed to instinctively lean into its warmth. It was maddening. Beautifully maddening. 

Clarke was ripped out of her memory by a question fielded to her by one of the elected leaders, causing a flash of irritation. As she gave her answer, a sudden drop in her stomach preceded a loud alarm blaring across Sanctum. After years of constant fighting and danger, Clarke and the others had developed almost a sixth sense for when trouble was around the corner. While she ushered the leaders out of the room and rushed to see what the problem was, her heart began to clench in a way that told her everything was not right. Something was wrong. 

She saw him before they managed to tell her. 

A motionless figure was being carried by the remaining scouting party, covered in what appeared to be Bellamy’s coat. Looking around, Clarke could not see the coat’s owner, scouring the small crowd that had gathered around the returning group. Worry turned to panic as her breaths began coming out in short rasps, eyes still scanning the crowd. Octavia was there, so was Echo and Miller. Jordan was being carted away by two of the scouting party, looking slightly bloody and bound for some reason. Where was Bellamy?

Octavia walked slowly over to her, looking like someone had hollowed out her body and taken away her spirit. Tear-streaked cheeks lifted and bloodshot eyes found Clarke’s. A dull feeling appeared in the back of her head, her neck soon stiffening in panic to appear frozen as Octavia took a breath. 

“Clarke,” She rasped, her voice sounding hoarse. Like she had been yelling. “Clarke, something happened.” The look on her face and the flat tone in her voice sent chills down Clarke’s spine. 

Realization it her. No. “Octavia?” Her voice trembled, as her vision became blurry. 

It had happened so fast. 

Unknown to them, the influence of the Primes still ran deep in Sanctum. As part of the Adjustment Protocol, several members of the Sanctum populace had been indoctrinated to be loyal to the Primes. Quietly, over the past several weeks, they conspired to assassinate the new leadership and seek out the exiled Russell Lightbourne. The scouting mission had been suggested by one of the agents as a ruse to kill Bellamy, Octavia, Echo, and Miller. Jordan, it seemed, had been forcibly converted to their philosophy during his time recovering from his stab wound. Without warning, the loyalists turned on them once they had gone far enough from Sanctum, intending to kill them quickly and quietly. 

Only the honed instincts of the group saved them, having sensed the movements of their would-be assassins only milliseconds beforehand. While Miller fought a crazed Jordan, trying to calm him down, Bellamy, Echo, and Octavia engaged the remaining party. In the chaos, one of the loyalists had thrown a knife at Miller. Without hesitating, Bellamy had jumped in front of the knife, hitting him squarely in the chest. This enraged the others, who quickly finished off their attackers and subdued a stunned Jordan, who seemed despondent after Bellamy’s actions. Octavia numbly told Clarke how she was with him as he died, having only a few precious seconds before the light left his eyes forever. The last words on his lips had been her name. That was too much for Clarke, who blinked back tears and shook her head furiously, refusing to believe this was all real.

He couldn’t be gone. Not now. Not when they were finally seeing what peace looked like.

Her throat constricted and she couldn’t speak. Her heart felt like it was being forced apart by hand, each half held by icy cold fingers. Wordlessly stepping away from Octavia, who still appeared to be numb, Clarke desperately made her way through the crowd towards where she guessed the body had been taken. Before long, she found herself standing in the hastily constructed medical wing, with both Jackson and Niylah looking at her worriedly. In front of her laid the long covered body of Bellamy Blake. 

With shaking hands, Clarke removed the coat that covered his face and fell to her knees at the sight of his lifeless face. A strangled sob escaped her lips as she beheld him, the expression on his face strangely blank without the worries and burdens that she normally saw on it. One of her hands found the front of his shirt while the other came to rest on his cheek. Tears streamed down her face as she let out a wail, the sound of her heart breaking into a million pieces. She never got to tell him. Never got to tell him how much she loved him or live the life that she had finally dared to imagine with him. As Jackson and Niylah slowly left her alone with what remained of Bellamy, Clarke felt the despair that she had kept at bay all these years start to creep back into her heart. All was lost, and now she was alone. Alone against the growing darkness. 

Madi found her hours later, still clinging to Bellamy with white-knuckled hands. Her bloodshot eyes staring blankly at his face, as if the sheer power of her gaze could somehow bring him back. A small hand carefully covered the one she had gripping Bellamy’s shirt. Clarke did not look at her, never taking her eyes off the face that would never smile again for her. Another one found Clarke’s shoulder, bigger and with more weight. Octavia had walked in and sat down beside her. Despite herself, Clarke found her gaze pulled toward the younger Blake sibling. A stab of pain flashed in her chest. The only Blake left. 

While Octavia’s eyes were no longer red with grief, the expression behind them was reminiscent of how she appeared after Lincoln’s death. But she had grown, had faced her demons and defeated them, and now she looked at Clarke who seemed to be empty inside. 

“I know that look.” She said carefully. “You can’t give up, Clarke. Not now.” Madi’s hand squeezed tighter as if to punctuate her Octavia’s words. 

Clarke looked back at Bellamy, fresh tears streaming down the familiar paths on her face. “He’s g-gone.” She choked, her voice shaking. “Gone, Octavia. And I n-never…“ She couldn’t finish her sentence, but both Madi and Octavia understood. 

“He knew, Clarke.” It was Madi that spoke this time, her voice cutting across the air like a bell. “He knew. We all did.” This statement did not comfort her, it only reminded her of all the wasted years.

“Look at me.” Madi’s voice rang again, its tone causing Clarke to meet her eyes. “It’s important to have hope,” She reminded her. Those words stomped on whatever remained of her heart, echoing in the chamber it used to reside in. 

“He wouldn’t want you to give up.” Octavia added, forcefully this time. Almost enough that Clarke believed her. 

In the end, all stars eventually die. Even the brightest, most extraordinary light in the sky must one day fade away. And all that will remain is the dark promise of an empty night, forever stretching beyond the world towards the infinite horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, regarding the ending. I toyed with multiple endings dealing with how I wanted to resolve Clarke's grief. In the end, I decided to leave it a bit open-ended to let you guys decide what happened next. Personally, I believe she grieved for a long while before realizing he would have wanted her to carry on, but I am aware that sometimes life does not work out that way. I meant the ending to be representative of grief itself, how it can seem hopeless when all the old platitudes that people give you just sort of fall flat. 
> 
> I know the imagery with the stars was a little too poetic and on-the-nose, but writing an ending for a sad fic is hard, so I just sort of went with it. As always, thanks for reading!


End file.
